The article considers the issues of the upbringing significance of philosophy as a university discipline in forming a student’s personality. This issue is caused by the specifics of philosophical knowledge, which, on the one hand, is not related to the specific professional needs of students, defined in the State Educational Standard as three goals: “to know – to be able – to master the skills”, and, on the other hand, causes a positive response and interest in the majority of students. Young people find in philosophy something no less important than professional and practical knowledge. The authors draw attention to the latent upbringing role of philosophical knowledge. To this end, the authors separate the concepts of education and upbringing and show that while education, in general, is limited by the social demand, upbringing by its nature is not limited by the social framework and its purpose is to create conditions for forming a person. The authors prove that philosophy plays a deep upbringing role, as holistic knowledge that combines ontology, epistemology, ethics, aesthetics, and axiology. The article reveals the association between the idea of being with the need of a person to distinguish reality from pseudo-reality, actual spiritual and personal development from deceptive success, to determine for themselves the real rather than illusory goals of life.